Housekeeper in the Headlines

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘I’ll have to sit this one out,’ she said. ‘My feet are killing me.’

  ‘The ball is due to finish soon—I was about to suggest that we should leave.’

  He was aware that he sounded curt, and caught the look of surprise she darted at him, but he felt marginally more in control now that her delectable body wasn’t pressed up against him.

  He took out his phone and instructed his driver to bring the car to the front of the hotel.

  Five minutes later Betsy blew out a breath as she leaned against the plush leather seat in the back of the car. ‘Sorry, but I can’t wear my shoes for a second longer.’

  ‘Put your seat belt back on,’ Carlos ordered as she released the belt and leaned down to fiddle with her shoes.

  ‘I will in a minute...’

  He swore as the car turned a sharp corner and she was flung against him. The sensation of her voluptuous curves pressed against him rattled his hard-won composure and, after securing the seat belt around her once more, he lifted her legs across his lap. His fingers brushed across her slender ankles as he unfastened the tiny buckles on her shoes.

  Betsy gave a deep sigh as she kicked off her shoes and wriggled her toes. ‘Oh...that’s better.’

  Her smile lit up her lovely face and Carlos’s heart kicked in his chest.

  ‘The ball seemed to go well. Not that I have much experience of grand parties. The most popular social event at the pub was darts night, when Fraddlington’s team played against teams from other villages.’

  ‘Why did you move to Dorset?’ he asked, needing to distract his mind from her slender legs lying across his lap. The split in her skirt had parted to reveal a toned thigh...

  ‘My aunt died and the house in London was sold. Sarah is an old school friend and she offered me a job at the pub that she and Mike had bought in Fraddlington. The landlord of the cottage I rented is a friend of Mike’s.’

  ‘What about your parents? Didn’t they help you after Sebastian was born?’

  ‘Mum came to visit, but she only stayed for a week. She has lived in LA for a few years now, and she has a new husband. As for my dad...’ A look of sadness crossed Betsy’s face. ‘We keep in contact sporadically, but he’s married again too—to his third wife. After he kidnapped me our relationship was never as close as it had been before,’ she said flatly.

  Carlos turned his gaze away from her and stared out of the window. Betsy’s vulnerability tugged on something inside him and he felt surprisingly protective of her. Neither of her parents had been good role models and they had never prioritised their daughter’s need for security. But, in contrast, Betsy was a devoted mother to Sebastian and, despite her reservations, she had accepted that marriage to him would allow the little boy to grow up in a safe family environment.

  The car pulled into the underground car park and Betsy carried her shoes to the lift, which whisked them up to the top floor of the apartment block. The mirrored walls inside the lift gave Carlos a view of her gorgeous figure from every angle.

  She was a pocket Venus, standing there in her stockinged feet, with her long skirt gathered in one hand and her shoes dangling by their straps from the other. He fancied that her mouth was still slightly swollen from where he’d kissed her earlier, and the memory of her lips parting beneath his made his body clench hard.

  He ushered her into the penthouse, which had been designed as his bachelor pad but hadn’t seen a lot of action in the past two years. In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he’d invited a woman back for the night.

  Carlos had put his lack of interest in sex down to his change of lifestyle after he’d retired from playing tennis professionally. Achieving the pinnacle of his ambition by winning the tournament in London had left him feeling unsettled and directionless. Grief for his mother, which he’d managed to supress for nearly two decades, had suddenly hit him hard, and guilt had consumed him.

  It still did.

  Betsy had headed down the corridor towards the guest bedroom. Carlos told himself he was relieved that there would be no further chance for her to flirt with him tonight. Because that was what she’d been doing at the ball—with a shy hesitancy that had affected him much more than if she’d come on to him with the boldness of a femme fatale.

  As he strode across the lounge he pulled off his bow tie and unfastened the top buttons on his shirt. He extracted a bottle of single malt Scotch from the drinks cabinet, poured a measure into a glass—and stiffened when he sensed that he wasn’t alone.

  Betsy—minus shoes and evening purse—stood in the doorway.

  ‘I thought you had gone to bed.’ Good manners compelled him to ask, ‘Is there anything I can get you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a nightcap.’

  Her husky voice tugged low in his gut. Carlos poured whisky into a second glass and reminded himself that women had thrown themselves at him since he was sixteen. He could handle this unremarkable, unsophisticated woman. No problem.

  He carried their drinks over to the coffee table and lowered himself down onto the sofa. An alarm bell rang in his head when Betsy sat next to him. She leaned forward to pick up her glass, and lust speared him in the groin as his gaze was drawn to the front of her dress and the creamy upper slopes of her breasts.

  She took a sip of her drink, and Carlos had an idea that she needed the kick of alcohol.

  ‘I would like to clarify a point about our marriage,’ she murmured, fixing her big brown eyes on his face.

  ‘Go on.’ His gaze narrowed on the pink flush that spread across her cheeks.

  ‘I’m not sure what you will want in...in the bedroom. What I mean is...will we share a bed?’

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth, and it was all Carlos could do to restrain himself from demonstrating exactly what he wanted. Her—naked and willing beneath him.

  ‘You say that your commitment to Sebastian will be total, but what about your commitment to our marriage?’ Betsy was becoming visibly more embarrassed, but she ploughed on. ‘What I’m asking is, will you want me to be a proper wife, or do you intend to keep a mistress discreetly in the background?’

  Carlos stretched out his long legs and hooked one ankle over the other. He took a swig of whisky before he answered. ‘Would you object if I kept a mistress?’ he asked.

  ‘Would it matter if I objected?’ She put her head on one side and studied him. ‘You’ve made it clear that you’re calling all the shots.’

  That vulnerability was there again in her voice. Carlos told himself that if he was a better man her words might have stirred his conscience. But his gaze was drawn to the rise and fall of Betsy’s breasts as she took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m simply trying to determine if you will...seek gratification outside of our marriage,’ she murmured. ‘And, if so, then it will only be fair for me to enjoy the same freedom.’

  Over his dead body, Carlos thought violently.

  He knew he should be appalled by the jealousy that surged like molten lava through his veins at the idea of Betsy warming another man’s bed. Possessiveness was not one of his faults, though God knew he had enough of them. But the proprietorial feeling remained.

  ‘The thing is...’ she said softly.

  She put her glass on the table and inched along the sofa towards him. Carlos breathed in her perfume, sweetly floral with underlying notes of something musky and deeply sensual that called to the wolf in him.

  ‘You kissed me and...well...’

  Her blush spread down her throat and over the slopes of her breasts, giving them the appearance of rose-flushed peaches, plump and firm and infinitely inviting. Carlos could see the outline of her nipples through her dress, and recalled how they had bloomed beneath his touch when he’d cupped her breasts in his hands during those crazy moments in the back of the car.

  ‘Well... I liked it when you kissed me...’


  Her honesty felt like a knife in his ribs.

  ‘And I got the impression that you are still attracted to me. So I’m wondering what you want from our relationship when we marry...or...or even before the wedding.’

  So much for his belief that he could handle her! Carlos mocked himself. She tied him in knots, and he resented it.

  He stood up abruptly and paced across the room to stand by the window. Before him Madrid was a mass of glittering lights against the backdrop of an inky sky. He was sorely tempted to respond to Betsy’s sweetly clumsy invitation by carrying her into the bedroom so that he could make love to her. It was what they both wanted.

  But something in her eyes told him that she might hope for more than sex—if not immediately then in the future, after they were married. And she would be disappointed. Because he had no intention of falling in love with her. Love meant responsibility, commitment and pain. Carlos had spent the past twenty years avoiding all three, and he was determined to maintain the status quo.

  ‘I will commit to our marriage and I will expect you to do the same,’ he growled as he swung round to face her. ‘As you pointed out, there is an attraction between us. I foresee that in the future we will have a sexual relationship—especially when you are my wife and we sleep in the same bedroom at my house in Toledo.’

  Betsy frowned. ‘You want us to share a room?’

  ‘It’s customary for married couples to do so,’ he said drily. ‘But I advise you not to get carried away, nor to forget that we are marrying for the sake of our son. This is not a fairy-tale romance.’

  ‘I’m well aware that you are not Prince Charming,’ Betsy snapped.

  Carlos watched her turn pale and then flush scarlet once more. Her eyes had darkened with anger, or maybe it was hurt. His conscience pricked again, but he reminded himself that her antipathy was safer than her sweetly clumsy attempt to seduce him.

  ‘You are so unbelievably arrogant.’

  She jumped to her feet and marched across the room to stand in front of him. But he noticed that she kept a distance between them, and he was glad. The temptation to reach out and pull her into his arms, lose whatever remained of his sanity in her glorious curves, still beat hard in him.

  ‘Two years ago you must have realised I was a virgin, but you went back to Spain without a word—without checking if I was okay.’

  ‘Was it really your first time?’ he asked gruffly.

  He had not forgotten anything about that night. Her eagerness to make love had delighted him. He had been surprised that she’d seemed to lack experience, but he’d been so hungry for her that he hadn’t cared when her hands had fumbled with the zip on his trousers, or when she’d curled her fingers around his erection and squeezed him so enthusiastically that he’d almost come there and then.

  ‘Yes. I wouldn’t lie about it.’

  His gaze narrowed on her flushed face. ‘Why me? You must have had boyfriends before we met—yet you were still a virgin. In your note you said you had slept with me because I was famous. Was that true?’

  She dropped her gaze and suddenly seemed to be fascinated with the rug beneath her feet. ‘I felt like an idiot when I overheard you telling that journalist that I was a casual fling. The truth is I had sex with you because I fancied you more than any of the guys I dated at university. Although, to be honest, there weren’t many. My parents’ volatile relationship wasn’t a great advertisement for love,’ she said wryly. ‘But I liked you, and I thought you liked me. I should have known that the sexiest man in Spain would only want a one-night stand with someone like me.’

  He frowned. ‘Someone like you?’

  ‘Ordinary. You only noticed me because we’d shared a house and I’d cooked your meals. I’ve seen photos in magazines of the women you date. They’re always beautiful and glamorous.’

  And shallow, Carlos thought. He could not remember individual faces, let alone the names of his past lovers. Only Betsy Miller had lodged like a burr beneath his skin.

  ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the gossip columns,’ he said drily. ‘For what it’s worth, I believe in being truthful as much as you. And I told you, I did try to contact you a few weeks after I’d left your aunt’s house.’

  A tiny frown appeared between her brows. ‘I moved from there soon after you had left. My aunt died unexpectedly and her son Lee was her sole heir. He told me that I had to leave because he wanted to sell the house. A removals firm came and took all the furniture and Aunt Alice’s personal belongings to a storage unit. I had just found out that I was pregnant, and I asked Lee if I could stay at the house while I looked for somewhere else to live, but he insisted that I had no legal right to stay there and I had to leave immediately.’

  ‘Dios!’ Carlos was enraged. ‘What kind of man would make a pregnant young woman homeless?’

  But he was hardly in a position to judge, he thought grimly. He should have stayed and spoken to Betsy the morning after he’d slept with her. It was true that he’d rushed back to Spain to be with his sister, but he’d received the call from Graciela saying that her baby needed heart surgery when he’d already been in the car on his way to the airport.

  If he was honest, he’d felt shaken by his spectacular loss of control with Betsy. That first time with her had been the most satisfying sexual experience he’d ever had. Almost immediately after they’d both climaxed, while he was still inside her, he’d felt himself harden again. He’d quickly changed the condom, but his carelessness was a possible explanation for how she’d fallen pregnant, Carlos realised.

  He took a gulp of whisky. ‘Even then, when you had nowhere to live and had just found out that you were pregnant with my baby, you didn’t ask for my help. Did you believe that I was a man like your aunt’s son and I would turn my back on you?’

  She had not given him a chance to accept responsibility for his child—perhaps because she had believed in his playboy reputation and the scurrilous gossip written about him to feed a celebrity-obsessed audience.

  Guilt ripped through him and he turned away from her. From now on he would give Betsy and their son his protection, Carlos vowed to himself. But that was all he could give her. He had locked his emotions away twenty years ago, when his mother had died and he’d blamed himself.

  ‘Earlier this evening we both agreed to do everything possible to make this a successful marriage,’ Betsy said quietly. ‘Why did you kiss me?’

  Carlos remained where he stood in front of the window and narrowed his eyes until the bright city lights splintered. ‘I am a red-blooded male and you made it clear that you wanted to be kissed.’

  Behind him he heard her draw a sharp breath. He watched her reflection in the window as she spun round and marched out of the room.

  He continued to stand there for a long time afterwards, alone with his demons. Spain’s most famous sportsman, an international celebrity, and he was the loneliest man in the world.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BETSY’S PHONE PINGED and her stomach swooped when she saw Carlos’s name flash on the screen. It was three weeks since she had woken in the guest bedroom at his penthouse the morning after the charity ball. As soon as she’d opened her eyes she had cringed with embarrassment as she’d recalled how she had propositioned him. She might not have actually asked him to have sex with her, but she had dropped unsubtle hints and he had rejected her.

  She couldn’t understand why she had behaved so out of character. Usually she was so reticent about her feelings.

  She had no intention of falling in love with him, Betsy assured herself, but when Carlos had kissed her in the car they had both gone up in flames. His mouth had been hot and demanding as he’d deepened the kiss so that it had become something more—something wilder and needier. She had felt the proof of his desire when she’d laid her hand on his chest and felt the thunderous beat of his heart. And when they had danced
together at the ball her wayward body had melted against him and she’d been very aware of the hard ridge of his arousal beneath his trousers.

  Two years ago passion had exploded between them with their first kiss, and the same thing had happened here in Madrid.

  Betsy knew she hadn’t imagined the feral gleam in Carlos’s eyes. She had thought of nothing else for the past three weeks. But that morning she had been in an agony of embarrassment, and he’d been coolly aloof in the car when he’d driven them to Toledo, an hour south of the capital.

  She had opted to sit in the back with Sebastian, who had been strapped into his baby seat.

  Carlos’s house stood on a hill overlooking the historical city which had been immortalised by Spain’s most famous artist El Greco in his painting View of Toledo. And Betsy had been pleasantly surprised to find that although Fortaleza Aguila still bore the evidence that it had once been a fortress, it was now an attractive house built of mellow brick, with terracotta roof tiles which had faded to a dusky pink in the blazing summer sun.

  ‘The English translation of the house’s name is Eagle Fortress,’ Carlos had told her, when she’d forgotten her awkwardness with him for a few moments and looked with interest at the home that would now be hers and Sebastian’s too.

  She had felt daunted by all the huge changes to her life—not least when Carlos had lifted Sebastian out of the car and carried him into the house, leaving her to follow him.

  The décor was traditionally Spanish, with dark wood panelling, ornate wall tiles and stone floors that were worn smooth with age. Betsy had recognised several original pieces of art that must be worth a fortune. It was all very beautiful, and something of a surprise after the modern penthouse in Madrid, but she felt like a visitor to a stately mansion.

  ‘I arranged for an interior designer to create a nursery for Sebastian, and the decorators have just finished,’ Carlos had told her as he’d opened a door on the second floor and ushered her into a large, sun-filled room.

  Painted in tones of pale blue, white and yellow, and filled with toys, with a magnificent wooden cot in the centre, it was the kind of nursery Betsy had imagined planning for Sebastian if she won the Lottery. Carlos had set Sebastian on his feet and he’d toddled across the floor towards another oversized fluffy toy rabbit.